tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post3396360448700781905..comments2024-03-27T18:20:38.176-05:00Comments on TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee"): America's "Founding Fathers" thought they were affecting the climateMinnesotastanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01382888179579245181noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-64285956778319312752019-05-21T21:15:36.508-05:002019-05-21T21:15:36.508-05:00Thanks for bringing up the UHI effect. I first st...Thanks for bringing up the UHI effect. I first stumbled across a reference to it in Michael Crighton's fine book 'State of Fear'. While I disagree with his conclusion that 'there is no global warming that is not natural and cyclical', he does do a very good job of citing his resources for the data he used in the book. And UHI in particular is a factor that is not factored in correctly.<br /><br />No matter what the conclusion on global warming/climate change may turn out to be, the research needs to account for EVERY variable as best we can if we're going to get the correct result. And we're not there yet.Peter Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036217573886263890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-62049054210321550012014-03-21T02:40:19.239-05:002014-03-21T02:40:19.239-05:00Well, they simply did not yet know about the Littl...Well, they simply did not yet know about the Little Ice Age (LIA) nor about the Maunder Minimum (sunspots) which is definitely connected to the LIA, though no one quite knows how, even now. The LIA ended around 1800, and the climate has been warming ever since, though not always at the same rate. There seems to be a 60-year inclined sine wave superimposed on the warming, and some climate scientists have done research on this, though it is too early to know how it all ties together.<br /><br />The LIA was not a consistently cold era, however. There were considerable variations - some warm decades and some severely cold ones, throwing farmers into boom times and bust times. But overall the climate WAS warming there at the end of the 1700s and early 1800s. There are wide variations in the dating of the end of the LIA. Some put it at around 1800, and some as late as 1900 or so.<br /><br />Franklin and those others were not aware of the Maunder Minimum, which was discovered in the later 1800s and not named till still later. Franklin was a VERY good observer of nature, even credited by some with discovering the Gulf Stream.<br /><br />The 60-year cycle is long enough that every generation is more or less unaware that the ups and downs it sees are repeats of earlier cycles, so each generation is easily fooled into thinking that the warming (or cooling) they are going through is unique.<br /><br />It is fairly significant that they were pointing at global warming as they saw it, but were not attributing it to CO2, but to LAND USE. Many climate skeptics are not skeptical about warming being caused by changing land use. They call the most obvious modern land use effect "the urban heat island effect." The skeptics assert, basically, that proper adjustments for this heat island effect are not done. I myself decry two aspects of this non-adjustment: First that the adjustment used is far too small, and secondly that the adjustment is a blanket adjustment. I think that each of the thousands of weather station locations should have its specific adjustment, not using one average value. The UHI is in some cases larger than all the warming measured since 1900, so it is a VERY significant factor in climate data assessment.<br /><br />It is GOOD to see that Franklin and others attributed the warming they saw to land use. At the same time, if warming was significant enough back then, then climate scientists need to include natural variations and land use in their thinking, not assume that all those other factors are unchanging and that only CO2 can possibly be affecting the climate.SteveGinGTOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00697382976006839418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-67652966498640631422014-03-07T21:24:01.043-06:002014-03-07T21:24:01.043-06:00Quite so. That, along with the theory (endorsed by...Quite so. That, along with the theory (endorsed by the government) that planting trees would bring more rain, were disastrous. A few wet years with high grain prices was all that was needed to convince folks to plow up the Buffalo grass and plant like mad. When exceedingly dry years came, the dust bowl tragically resulted. Royhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09110900165910048617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-31428399635346565862014-03-07T18:12:47.276-06:002014-03-07T18:12:47.276-06:00This meritless theory was probably behind the disa...This meritless theory was probably behind the disastrous idea that, "rain follows the plow" which led to abuse of the drylands in the American west and Australia.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow<br /><br />I daresay we're working with far more advanced and diverse science to document the fact of anthropogenic climate change. There's no fuel for the nonsensical contemporary debate here, unless you're on the wrong side of modern science and cling to anything obfuscating argument you can.BJ Nichollshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04525256614467299544noreply@blogger.com